Kramergate Or How Michael Richards Is Just Another Racist Bigot

Blurred motion view of the Sogo sign, seen from the Hsinchu train station, taken on Friday, November 11th 2006 in Hsinchu, Taiwan.

Well, looks like another bigot idiot came out of the cracks and tried to salvage his one trick pony career after having made racist comments after being heckled during a comedy show. Those of you wanting to actually see the whole thing, here it is from YouTube.

For those who don’t watch videos, here are the lowlights. The video is taken on someone’s camera phone – they seem to be a quick thinker who realises that Richards is losing it and they start videoing after he has already started screaming. The video starts with him yelling:

“Shut up! 50 years ago we’d have you hanging upside down with a f****** fork up your ass!”

To my mind, this is the most racist thing he says. He really sounds like he’s missing the good old days when white folks would simply string up any uppity niggers. He then continues in the following vein:

“You can talk, you can talk, you can talk! You’re brave now motherf*****! Throw his ass out! He’s a nigger, He’s a nigger, he’s a nigger! (at this point you hear the holder of the camera say “oh my god!”) A nigger! Look, there’s a nigger!”

At this point the recipient of the abuse (and the audience generally) seem stunned by the tirade and Richards continues:

“Ooooh, oooh. All right, see? This shocks you, it shocks you to see what’s buried beneath you stupid motherf******?”

At this point, someone in the audience (it seems like it’s the target of Richards’ abuse) responds:

Audience Member: “That was uncalled for.”

Richards: “What was uncalled for? It’s uncalled for for you to interrupt my ass you cheap motherf*****! You guys have been talking and talking and talking. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

There is still laughter at this point. Some nervous, some seems genuine and some seems to be laughing at the spectacle of Richards self-destructing. The holder of the camera says “This guy is going nuts.”

Richards: (said in a gentle tone of voice) ”What’s the matter? Is this too much for you to handle?” (the video cuts at this point and then continues – I don’t know why.) “They’re going to arrest me for calling a black man a nigger?”

Right about here the audience seriously turns on him. You can hear quite a few angry voices and people start to leave, one saying “That was uncalled for you f****** cracker-ass motherf*****,” on the way out. This is actually how I respond to the racists on YouTube, I’m always calling them hillbilly crackers. This seems to be pretty much the exact response Richards wanted and now it looks as if he’s trying to make a point:

“Cracker ass? You calling me cracker ass, nigger?”

There’s a bit of back and forth until the audience member hits Richards with the ultimate insult, the truth:

Audience Member: “You’re just not funny. That why you’re a reject, never had no shows, never had no movies, ‘Seinfeld’ – that’s it.”

Richards: “Oh I guess you got me there, you’re absolutely right. I’m just a wash-up, gotta stand on the stage.”

Audience: “That’s un-f******-called for. That aint necessary.”

Richards: “Well, you interrupted me pal. That’s what happens when you interrupt the white man, don’t you know? You see? You see, there’s still those words, those words, those words.”

At this point, Richards simply gives up and walks off stage. The whole thing stunned not so much because he repeatedly said nigger but because he didn’t know where to go once he’d done it. He clearly thought he was saying something funny, then saying something insightful. But he was nowhere near good enough to carry it off. Any sort of performance is a risk and the higher the risk of your act, the better you have to be to carry it off. If you’re walking a tightrope one foot off the ground, it doesn’t really matter if you’re no good. If you fall you won’t be seriously hurt. But if you’re 100 metres up with no net you’d better be f****** good because if you screw up, the results will be catastrophic.

Hm. He’s an idiot.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that. And with all the racial tensions in America, you can easily understand why it was such a faux pas.

The impact wouldn’t have been the same in other countries, but it doesn’t change the fact what he is. He’s a washed-up hillbilly f***** who needs a brain.

Racism is hard to understand for anyone who hasn’t experienced being a visible minority. I am serious when I tell you that I can see when people are racist towards me. It’s a vibe, a micro-expression of the face of disdain and hate that is like nothing else.

The “don’t ask don’t tell policy” isn’t helping because talking about it will make the whole problem a lot better. But in America, a lot of neighborhoods are still naturally segregated by ethnicity. This happens in other countries as well, but it isn’t as polarized, in my opinion.

Oh well, what do I know anyways?

Racism is a form of hate that seems to be promoted by the ignorant. They find all these stupid reasons to justify it. Just look at all the comments that came out of Mr. Angry’s post on his blog. I know that he has had trouble with racist imbeciles since his stand against racism on YouTube. To me, these are just mind pollution and they should be erradicated. The thoughts that is and the words. The word thought police comes to mind from George Orwell’s 1984. Naturally, such a system would never work. Freedom of thought is one of the most important principles in our society. Or at least, we would like to believe it as such.

Such thoughts also make me think of the Dark Side of The Force of Star Wars. Anger, hate, jealousy, those are the paths to the Dark Side of The Force. As stupid as this sounds to the unintiated Star Wars fanatic, inherently, the message of those movies is the message of Good. Naturally, George Lucas spoilt it a bit with Episode One, but all in all, the essence still remains.

Bringing balance through The Force by killing all of the Jedi seems perverted, but to a twisted mind, to save a beloved, this seemed justifiable.

What is racism but a form of despicable hate? And what is hate, but a form of jealousy? Hating the bigots back isn’t correct. In my mind, pity is the right emotional response. Throwing their diatribes back into their faces and pitying them. Because they have closed and small minds. Pity them, because that is what Jesus would have done.

The Laugh Factory incident

During a November 17, 2006, stand-up comedy routine at The Laugh Factory in West Hollywood, California, Richards responded to a blackheckler with racially charged comments, yelling, “Fifty years ago we’d have you upside-down with a f****** fork up your ass” (an apparent lynching reference), and repeatedly shouting “He’s a nigger!” The heckler responded with his own racially charged comments, and by repeatedly saying “That was uncalled for!” before calling Richards a “f******cracker-ass motherf*****” and f****** white boy.” The incident ended when Richards walked off of the stage, leaving an employee from The Laugh Factory apologizing afterward. Although Richards performed at The Laugh Factory the following night without incident , the company has since stated that Richards is no longer welcome at the venue.

During a November 20, 2006, satellite appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman (with Jerry Seinfeld as the pre-booked guest), Richards apologized, saying, “For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I’m deeply, deeply sorry… I’m not a racist. That’s what’s so insane about this.” He described his outburst as one of “pure rage.” Richards told Letterman that he was trying to undermine the hecklers by being more outrageous, but his approach backfired.

According to Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, the two men who were targeted by the outburst, they were merely ordering drinks after arriving late to the comedy club, and not heckling. The men, represented by Gloria Allred, are planning to sue Richards in the near future. McBride and Doss also recently appeared on The Today Show to discuss their version of the incident. The two did not accept Richards’ apology, with Doss stating, “No, I think that apology was totally fake; it was forced. I feel like that was a career move. It wasn’t sincere.” The men have also indicated that they would like Richards to pay them “monetary compensation” for his remarks although Howard Rubenstein, Richards’ publicist, has indicated there are no plans to pay the men.

Remarks about Jews

On 22 November2006, reports surfaced that Richards had made remarks about Jews during a stand-up routine in April 2006 that could be regarded as anti-semitic. Richards called a heckler a “f****** Jew” and said “You people are the cause of Jesus dying.” The publicist Richards hired after fallout from his comments, Howard Rubenstein, confirmed the report, but added that the remarks were made as part of the comedy act, and stated that Richards is Jewish. The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, citing anonymous sources said to be familiar with Richards including a television director who is said to have worked with Richards for several years, has claimed that Richards is not Jewish and was raised a Catholic.